and yielding, but I've always been aware that in your secret heart you harboured very different thoughts; you're a blackguard! Your father always said so; I say 'said,' for he always said what he thought, and he was a straight man, Arvid, and that—you—are—not! And you may be sure that if he were still alive he would say with grief and pain: 'You're not straight, Arvid, you—are—not—straight!'"
He did a few more diagonal lines and it sounded as if he were applauding the scene with his feet; he rattled his bunch of keys as if he were giving the signal for the curtain to rise. His closing remarks had been so rounded off that the smallest addition would have spoilt the whole. In spite of the heavy charge which he had actually expected for years—for he had always believed his brother to be acting a part—he was very glad that it was over, happily over, well and cleverly over, so that he felt almost gay and even a little grateful. Moreover he had had a splendid chance of venting the wrath which had been kindled upstairs, in his family, on some one; to vent it on Andersson had lost its charm; and he knew better than to vent it on his wife.
Arvid was silent; the education he had received had so intimidated him that he always believed himself to be in the wrong; since his childhood the great words "upright, honest, sincere, true," had daily and hourly been drummed into his ears, so that they stood before him like a judge, continuously saying: "Guilty...." For a moment he thought that he must have been mistaken in his calculations, that his brother must be innocent and he himself a scoundrel; but immediately after he realized that his brother was a cheat, deceiving him by a simple lawyer's trick. He felt prompted to run away, fearful of being drawn into a quarrel, to run away without making his request number two, and confessing that he was on the point of changing his profession.
There was a long pause. Charles Nicholas had plenty of time to recapitulate his triumph in his memory. That little word "blackguard" had done his tongue good. It had been as pleasant as if he had said "Get out!" And the opening of the door, Andersson's reply, and the production of the paper, everything had passed off splendidly; he had not forgotten the bunch of keys on his night-table; he had turned the key in the lock without any difficulty; his proof was binding as a rope, the conclusion he had drawn had been the baited hook by which the fish had been caught.
He had regained his good temper; he had forgiven, nay, he had forgotten, and as he slammed the door of the safe, he shut away the disagreeable story for ever.
But he did not want to part from his brother in this mood; he wanted to talk to him on other subjects; throw a few shovelfuls of gossip on the unpleasant affair, see him under commonplace circumstances, sitting at his table, for instance—and why not eating and drinking? People always looked happy and content when they were eating and drinking; he wanted so see him happy and content. He wanted to see his face calm, listen to his voice speaking without a tremor, and he resolved to ask him to luncheon. But he felt puzzled how to lead up to it, find a suitable bridge across the gulf. He searched his brain, but found nothing. He searched his pockets and found—the match.
"Hang it all, you've never lit your cigar, old boy!" he exclaimed with genuine, not feigned, warmth.
But the old boy had crushed his cigar during the conversation, so that it would not draw.
"Look here! Take another!" and he pulled out his big leather case.
"Here! Take one of these! They are good ones!"
Arvid, who, unfortunately, could not bear to hurt anybody's feelings, accepted it gratefully, like a hand offered in reconciliation.
"Now, old boy," continued Charles Nicholas, talking lightly and pleasantly, an accomplishment at which he was an expert. "Let's go to the nearest restaurant and have lunch. Come along!"
Arvid, unused to friendliness, was so touched by these advances that he hastily pressed his brother's hand and hurried away through the shop without taking any notice of Andersson, and out into the street.
The brother felt embarrassed; he could not understand it. To run away when he had been asked to lunch! To run away when he was not in the least angry with him! To run away! No dog would have run away if a piece of meat had been thrown to him!
"He's a queer chap!" he muttered, stamping the floor. Then he went to his desk, screwed up the seat of his chair as high as it would go and climbed up. From this raised position he was in the habit of contemplating men and circumstances as from a higher point of view, and he found them small; yet not so small that he could not use them for his purposes.
CHAPTER III
THE ARTISTS' COLONY
It was between eight and nine o'clock on the same beautiful May morning. Arvid Falk, after the scene with his brother, was strolling through the streets, dissatisfied with himself, his brother, and the whole world. He would have preferred to see the sky overcast, to be in bad company. He did not believe that he was a blackguard, but he was disappointed with the part he had played; he was accustomed to be severe on himself, and it had always been drummed into him that his brother was a kind of stepfather to whom he owed great respect, not to say reverence. But he was worried and depressed by other thoughts as well. He had neither money nor prospect of work. The last contingency was, perhaps, the worse of the two, for to him, with his exuberant imagination, idleness was a dangerous enemy.
Brooding over these disagreeable facts, he had reached Little Garden Street; he sauntered along, on the left pavement, passed the Dramatic Theatre, and soon reached High Street North. He walked on aimlessly; the pavement became uneven; wooden cottages took the place of the stone houses; badly dressed men and women were throwing suspicious glances at the well-dressed stranger who was visiting their quarter at such an early hour; famished dogs growled threateningly at him. He hastened past groups of gunners, labourers, brewers' men, laundresses, and apprentices, and finally came to Great Hop-Garden Street. He entered the Hop-Garden. The cows belonging to the Inspector-General of Ordnance were grazing in the fields; the old, bare apple trees were making the first efforts to put forth buds; but the lime trees were already in leaf and squirrels were playing up and down the branches. He passed the merry-go-round and came to the avenue leading to the theatre; here he met some truant schoolboys engaged in a game of buttons; a little further a painter's apprentice was lying in the grass on his back staring at the clouds through the dome of foliage; he was whistling carelessly, indifferent to the fact that master and men were waiting for him, while flies and other insects drowned themselves in his paint-pots.
Falk had walked to the top of the hill and had come to the duck-pond; he stood still for a while, studying the metamorphoses of the frogs; watching the leeches; catching a water-spider. Then he began to throw stones. The exercise brought his blood into circulation; he felt rejuvenated, a schoolboy playing truant, free, defiantly free! It was freedom bought by great self-sacrifice. The thought of being able to commune with nature freely and at will, made him glad; he understood nature better than men who had only ill-treated and slandered him; his unrest disappeared; he rose and continued his way further into the country.
Walking through the Cross, he came into Hop-Garden Street North. Some of the boards were missing in the fence facing him, and there was a very plainly marked footpath on the other side. He crept through the hole, disturbing an old woman who was gathering nettles, crossed the large tobacco field where a colony of villas has now sprung up, and found himself at the gate of "Lill-Jans."
There was no doubt of its being
